Two luxury pet trade shows in los angeles…confusing

As you may already know, this February there are two  “high end” pet industry trade shows in Los Angeles, 1 day apart from each other.

Both shows cater to “pet boutiques”   and the majority of the exhibitors will feature clothing, beds and collars (no bird seed or cat litter here).

Both will be held in downtown Los Angeles.

And both have been fiercely competing in the trade magazines. (but oddly their ads look remarkably similar!)

Before I write on I must admit that  happytails is exhibiting at one of them; Luxury Pet Pavilion, but only because we couldn’t do both, we just had to choose one. But the point of this entry isn’t to tout the merits of one or the other (well, maybe it is a little) but more importantly is to see if anyone else thinks that the number of pet “trade” shows is getting out of hand! Every year it seems like another show, or two, are added.

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As exhibitors we don’t want to miss out on opportunities to see existing and new customers. So we end up spending far more money on trade shows to see the same number of customers and prospects.

The advantage for the buyer or show attendee, is convenience. A show might be closer to you so you save on travel, or there is more flexibility in dates. The downside of course is that the exhibitor attendance might be down so you don’t see as much. We can’t attend all of the shows. 

Okay, so what you really want to know– why are there two high end “luxury” pet trade shows in Los Angeles this Feb? The Show Room (LA Pet Designers) being held  at the convention center was born last year in Santa Monica when a group of 13 local vendors had a mini tradeshow in a nearby hotel. Small, quick and dirty.

Since it went so well, the main organizers decided to take it to the next level… little did they know that the gals at Luxury Pet Pavilion were bringing their traveling trade show to L.A.— Oooops!  And of course after they told everyone about it, neither party wanted to back down.

 We debated a long time about which show to attend. There weren’t that many points of differentiation. So, after really searching, struggling and looking at the minutia we chose Luxury Pet Pavilion  because:

1. It was over a weekend so we thought more buyers may be able to attend

2. We personally like the Bonaventure better that the LA Convention Center

3.  Luxury Pet Pavilion is a bit more established.

4. But the real reason is we got more phone calls from other exhibitors (our friends) “encouraging” us to go with LPP

At “press time” LA Pet Designers/The ShowRoom has 19 exhibitors while Luxury Pet Pavilion has 40.  

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Let’s not forget that Global Pet Expo in San Diego is also in February AND Groom & Kennel in Burbank… also in February.

We’ll be taking our vitamins!

Let us know what you think about all of these trade shows. Are they providing more opportunities for buyers or is it just spreading our time more thinly?

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